Bet on Adoption of a U.S. Climate Policy
Nov, 2012 - BILL SWEET - IEEE
Spectrum Online
Four
years ago, six months before the last presidential
election, I expressed skepticism about whether the
United States would adopt a cap-and-trade carbon
reduction plan, even though both candidates Obama
and McCain had explicitly favored such a system.
This year, though neither President Obama or challenger
Romney has uttered the words "climate change" during
the campaign, my prediction is that the United States
will soon adopt some kind of carbon plan, regardless
of who wins.
Because of dramatically extreme climate events seen
in the last few years, most recently the drought
that afflicted U.S. farm states last summer, most
Americans have come to quietly accept that global
warming is real and dangerous. Accordingly, in the
immediate aftermath of the storm that devastated
New York City last week, both Mayor Michael Bloomberg
and Governor Andrew Cuomo prominently mentioned climate
change--without blaming climate, they said the city
would have to expect more disastrous flooding as
the world continues to warm.
Two days later, in a move that took all political
pundits by surprise, Bloomberg endorsed Obama for
re-election, basing his decision almost entirely
on what he said was the president's superior position
on climate change. Why would Bloomberg, who first
ran for mayor as a Republican and now styles himself
an independent, endorse a Democrat who has not
talked publicly about climate change in the
four years he
has been president?
In essence Bloomberg referred to what I have
called in this blog Obama's stealth climate
policy: the
very strict clean air regulations his Environmental
Protection Agency has imposed, which strongly
discourage continued generation of electricity
by the dirtier
and older coal-fired plants; and the equally
strict rules his administration has set for
long-term
automotive fuel efficiency (the CAFE standards).
In his statement endorsing Obama, published by
bloomberg.com on Nov. 1, Mayor Bloomberg said: "Our climate
is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather
we have experienced in New York City and around the
world may or may not be the result of it, the risk
that it might be -- given this week’s devastation
-- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate
action.… [O]ver the past four years, President
Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our
carbon consumption, including setting high fuel-efficiency
standards for cars and trucks. His administration
also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions,
which will help to close the dirtiest coal power
plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy),
which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year."
Bloomberg, to be sure, is not your average-Joe
American, and New York City is not your typical
demographic.
As stated in his endorsement column, the
immensely wealthy mayor has had his personal
foundation
donate $50 million to a national anti-coal
campaign. Under
his leadership, New York City has deployed
the world's largest fleet of hybrid-electric
buses,
ordered universal
adoption of hybrid taxi cabs, pioneered deployment
of electric vehicle charging stations, and
formulated an ambitious long-term green energy
program.
Bloomberg also has chaired the so-called
C40 group of big
cities in their efforts to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
Still, it is a telling fact when, just as
a national election is hanging on a razor
balance,
a major
political figure unexpectedly steps into
the fray and throws
his considerable weight to one of the candidates
on the basis of that candidate's position
on the previously unmentionable subject
of climate
change.
The specifics of Bloomberg's position also
are telling. In their joint press conference
the
day after "Frankenstorm," Governor
Cuomo opined that New York City may just have to
build a "dike" to protect itself, having
seen two "hundred year storms" in two years.
Subsequently, Mayor Bloomberg expressed skepticism
about whether such barriers would be feasible in
New York City.
It's to be assumed that Bloomberg--a trained
electrical engineer, by the way--knows
what he is talking
about. He owns a home in London, which
in fact has built
such barriers to protect the Thames
estuary from North Sea storm surges. When Bloomberg
says he
believes New York City cannot feasibly
build such a system,
we can take it for granted that he
has
considered the issue carefully and
is not shooting from
the hip. What he is saying, implicitly,
is that there
is only one way, long-term, to protect
New York from the ravages of climate
change, and that
is to slow
and ultimately stop global warming.